Houston
Houston has long been a crossroads of Black migration, creativity, and resilience. After Emancipation, formerly enslaved people established independent communities known as Freedmen’s Towns, carving out spaces of autonomy in a rapidly industrializing city. One of the most prominent, Houston’s Fourth Ward, became a vibrant cultural and political center where Black Houstonians built churches, businesses, and social institutions that shaped the city’s identity. Though highways and redevelopment have threatened these historic neighborhoods, the roots of resistance and community remain strong. In Houston, the Black experience is not only preserved in its heritage trees and historic corridors—it is alive in the ongoing struggle to protect land, memory, and self-determination.
Listening Session Recap
Our Houston Team
Naomi Carrier
- Houston Team Lead
- Texas Native
- Founder and CEO of the Texas Center for African American Living History (TCAALH)
- Author, playwrite, educator
Marco Robinson
- Associate Professor of History at Prairie View A&M University
- Assistant Director of the Ruth J. Simmons Center for Race and Justice
Sharon Fletcher
- Houston native – 5th ward
- Executive Director of the Freedmens Town Conservancy
Brady Mora
- Houston native
- Research Arborist
- Contributor to Emancipation National Historic Trail
Featured Tree Stories
The Alta Vista Trees of Prairie View A&M University
Across the Prairie View A&M University campus stand trees that once shaded the grounds of the Alta Vista Plantation. Their roots reach into soil shaped by enslavement, Reconstruction, and Black educational triumph. These trees bore silent witness to the plantation’s transformation in 1876 and still mark the boundaries of one…
The Can’t See Tree
In 1865, there was an old live oak tree growing on the Patton Plantation near Varner Creek just up from its mouth on the Brazos River, deep in the heart of Texas’s Low Country in Brazoria County, where Sugar Cane grew twenty feet tall. This plantation is now called Varner-Hogg….
The Centennial Oak at Emancipation Park
Did you know the oldest public park in Houston — and possibly the oldest in Texas — was founded in 1872 by newly freed Black men? This land, now known as @emancipationprkhou @epconservancy, was purchased to be a permanent home for Juneteenth celebrations just 7 years after freedom finally reached Texas. And…
The Divine Nine Trees of Prairie View A&M University
Across Prairie View A&M University’s campus stand a collection of trees that carry a legacy of pride, community, and tradition. Known collectively as the Divine Nine Trees, these trees honor the historically Black Greek‑letter organizations whose chapters have shaped generations of PVAMU students and leaders. For decades, Black Greek organizations…
The Elm at Eldorado Ballroom
We came across a beautiful American Elm tree outside the historic Eldorado Ballroom in Houston Texas in 3rd ward. This historic ballroom in 3rd ward has been home to so many major artists in Black history including performers such as Ray Charles, Etta James, Jimmy Reed, Guitar Slim Eddie Jones,…
The Freedom Tree
The Freedom Tree in Missouri City, Texas. It was under this live oak tree that General Gordon Granger’s troops (most of whom were mounted Black Union soldiers) rode into Galveston to announce and enforce General Order #3. This order was issued by Union General Gordon Granger, on June 19, 1865…
The Sandra Bland Tree
Sandra Annette Bland, a 28‑year‑old Black woman from Chicago, spent some of her last moments on the road now renamed Sandra Bland Parkway in her honor. After being stopped for a minor traffic violation, she was taken into police custody—an encounter that would unjustly and abruptly end her life. Near…
The Walnut Grove Witness Oaks
On the banks of Oyster Creek in Fort Bend County stood a ten-room plantation house built in 1846 by the widow Mary Nibbs. All that remains of the 5,000-acre sugar and cotton plantation — once called “Walnut Grove” — are three very large live oak trees, grown from acorns Mary…
Photo Gallery
